


WPaRG Intermission: The Man in the Bowler Hat

by chelonianmobile, MultiFanGirlWickedPony, Writearoundchic



Series: WPaRG [20]
Category: Book of Life (2014), Disney - All Media Types, Meet the Robinsons (2007), The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Time Travel, Forced Pregnancy, Forced Prostitution, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Multi, Murder, Rape, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Start Of Darkness, Underage Prostitution, different timelines' versions are different people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelonianmobile/pseuds/chelonianmobile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MultiFanGirlWickedPony/pseuds/MultiFanGirlWickedPony, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writearoundchic/pseuds/Writearoundchic
Summary: The life of Michael Yagoobian, and the hows and whys of what he did.
Series: WPaRG [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665667
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

“Michael, this is Cornelius. He’s going to be your new roommate.”

The boy in front of him is taller, but thin as a stick and with glasses that cover half his face. His hair is wild and his smile lopsided.

_Geek._

“Cornelius, this is Michael.”

He is small and stocky, with dark hair and a distant expression. Purple bags decorate the area beneath his eyes. 

_Troubled._

“Hi Michael,” the boy called Cornelius says, “I’m Cornelius.”

“I know,” the smaller child says, and points toward their caretaker. “She just told me.”

Cornelius smiles awkwardly. “Right! Right, sorry, I’m not really, uh, good at this… with people, sorry!”

_Socially awkward._

He rolls his eyes. “That’s obvious. You can just call me Goob, that’s what everyone else does.”

_Surly._

“Goob? Why does everyone call you Goob?”

“Michael’s full name is Michael Yagoobian,” the caretaker explains.

“… What she said.”

“Goob it is then.” A smile like sunshine, an extended hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Goob! _Goob_! I did it, I took first place at the science fair!”

Cornelius stands in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear, spindly arms wrapped around a trophy nearly half his size.

___Nerd._ _ _

“Really? I thought that was a paperweight.”

Goob lies across his bed, the shadows beneath his eyes covered up by the rim of a baseball cap. He tosses a ball back and forth between his hands.

___Sarcastic._ _ _

“Oh ha ha, very funny.”

“I try. So what egghead thing did you enter this time?”

Cornelius launches into some long winded explanation that Goob cannot understand, and is too tired to pretend to.

___Rambling._ _ _

“English, please, Count Dorkula.” He yawns.

___Antisocial._ _ _

The other boy’s face falters. “… Couldn’t sleep again?”

“No thanks to you and your weird projects.”

“Oh…” Cornelius offers a guilty smile. “… Sorry?”

“It’s fine.” Goob smiles back. “Just what I get for having a science geek for a roommate.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Nobody wants me!”

Cornelius bursts through the door, eyes full of angry tears, arms wrapped around himself.

_Emotional._

“Interview didn’t go well, huh?”

Goob looks up from his comic book, a dulled expression on his face.

_Callous._

“What do you think?” Cornelius scowls and throws himself down on the bed.

_Snappish._

His roommate sets down his comic and moves toward him, reaching out to place a cautious hand on his shoulder.

“What happened this time?”

Cornelius buries his face in the bed sheets and does not look up at him.

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“He had a peanut allergy.”

“So?”

_Clueless._

“I set it off.”

“Another one of your bright ideas?”

“… Yes.”

Goob sighs and sits down on the mattress. “Why don’t you just _talk_ to them? They might like you.”

“I want to _impress_ them.”

“And how well has that been working out?”

“… Maybe you’re right.”

“I usually am.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Goob! I need your help with something!”

Cornelius jumps to his feet when the other boy enters the room, and is at the door by the time his friend passes through it.

_Overexcited._

“Right now?”

Goob’s entire body sags with exhaustion. The skin beneath his eyes is almost black.

_Lazy._

“Yeah!” Cornelius grabs his arm. “I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve got something to show you!”

“This wouldn’t happen to be another one of your science projects, would it?”

“Uh… well…”

“ _Cornelius_.”

“… maybe?”

_Vague._

“I’m tired, I don’t have time to help you. Besides I’ve got this baseball game tomorrow…”

_Uncooperative._

“C’mon, Goob, you’re the only one who’ll listen. Please?”

A sigh. “… Fine.”

“You’re the best!”

“Yeah, well, you’d better not forget it.”

A smile. “I won’t.”


	5. Chapter 5

“GOOB! You’ll never believe what happened!”

Cornelius throws open the door with so much force that it hits the wall with a clatter and bounces off again, almost hitting him as it does so.

_Careless._

Goob says nothing, just lies on his bed, nursing a freshly blackened eye.

_Sullen._

Undeterred by his roommate’s silence, Cornelius prattles on.

“Someone wants to adopt me!”

Radio silence.

“Her name’s Lucille and she’s a scientist, and her husband Bud, he’s a science professor, and they want me to come and live with them, isn’t that great?!”

_Show-off._

Not a peep from the boy on the bed.

_Ornery._

“… Goob,” Cornelius slowly creeps toward his friend, “are you okay?”

He gasps when he sees the black eye, the small face littered with bruises.

“What happened?”

“… You remember that baseball game I told you about?”

“The other team beat you up?”

“We lost.”

“… Oh. Why’d they-”

“ _I_ lost. Fell asleep in the ninth inning. Probably happened because I was up all night _helping you_.”

“… I’m sorry, Goob.”

_Liar._

“So am I.”


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re leaving?”

Cornelius stands by the bed he will never sleep in again, a suitcase clasped in one hand.

_Runaway._

“Yeah.”

Goob remains in the place he has always come back to, since the day they met. He is still a part of this room, as immovable as the walls and floor, it seems.

_Unwanted._

“Good luck,” he says and does not mean it. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Cornelius smiles. “I mean it, thanks for everything.”

“Mm,” Goob murmurs before turning away. “You should get going.”

“Probably.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Cornelius hesitates for just a little too long. “… I’m sorry,” he says at last, “for keeping you up. For making you lose the game.”

“Whatever.”

_Petty._

“Goob, I-“

“Just go.”


	7. Chapter 7

Goob grows up and he grows angry. There are no other roommates. There are no other baseball games. There are no parents or siblings.

There is only an empty room, friendless days and lonely nights.

So it goes for years to come.


	8. Chapter 8

“Michael, this is Mr. Sykes, he’s going to be taking care of you from now on.”

Beside the orphanage caretaker is a giant of a man with dark glasses and freshly-pressed suit. He offers a hand, but Goob does not reach out to take it.

_Ornery._

“Hi.”

The caretaker’s smile falters slightly. “Have you got your bags packed?”

“Yeah, I’ve got ‘em, chief,” he says. “Do I really have to go?”

Something gleams in the big man’s eyes, but neither boy nor woman is looking for it, and so it goes by unnoticed.

“Michael,” the woman says gently, “I’m sorry… but you can’t stay here.”

She’s right, and he knows it. The orphanage is closing down, he has to go somewhere. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

_Difficult._

“I’ll miss you.” 

“Sure you will,” he grumbles, at last taking the man called Sykes’ hand.

“Nice to meet you,” the man says and squeezes so hard that the boy can feel his hand go numb.

Goob says nothing 

He has nothing to say.


	9. Chapter 9

“Where are you taking me?”

Goob sits in the backseat of a car bigger than any he’s ridden in before. It has dark windows, and leather seats, and smells strongly of disinfectant. There are childproof locks on the doors. 

_Childproof_ locks: to keep inside more children than the seats were meant to fill.

The man in the dark glasses does not answer, and still they continue on.


	10. Chapter 10

“What is this place?”

_Dense._

An old warehouse, dark and shabby, but not quite empty. The car stops and an armed man forces the children from it and into the dark recesses of the building. It is unspeakably cold inside.

“Where are we?” Goob asks again.

_Stubborn._

No one answers him.

He goes on without knowing for days…

And then - like the Wiseman’s brother, like the God of Mischief, like the Emperor of the Sun - his own dirty room comes and he understands more than can ever be explained.

Someone listens to the radio one day.

“Cornelius Robinson graduates college at fourteen.”

_Traitor._


	11. Chapter 11

“What’s your name?”

The one who asks the question is a girl-turning-to-woman. She is small and moon-faced with short black hair. Her face is set with just one eye; he does not know what has become of the other.

“Goob,” he tells her, though it leaves a sour taste in his mouth. “What’s yours?”

“Goob?” A smile comes to a pair of bruised lips. “Who names their kid _Goob_?”

“Michael Yagoobian actually,” he says, trying for irritation but only managing exhaustion. “Goob is just what people call me.”

“Last I checked, nobody calls us much of anything.”

_Cheeky._

“Well you can call me anything you like.”

_Needy._

“I think I will.”

“Well, what’s your name, then?”

“Doris,” she says. “I’d say it was nice to meet you, but…”

The room around them is packed and filthy, and smells of death and sweat and sex so strongly that it is a wonder one of them has not been made sick by it. There are teeth marks at his throat, and bruises between her legs, and a certain emptiness inside of them that has nothing to do with hunger.

“I’ll wish you weren’t here, if you’ll wish that I wasn’t.”

“Deal.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Michael, I want to hurt them.”

Doris is bleeding from between her legs, her arms a mess of clawed-open flesh.

_Ugly._

“I know.”

Michael Yagoobian doesn’t look much better himself. He too is a mess of swellings and scratches and dried blood; the only difference between the two of them is the freshness of it all.

_Filthy._

“I want them to die,” Doris mutters. “I want them to hurt as much as they’ve hurt us… _more_ , actually.”

“What if we never get out of here?”

“Then I hope there’s a Hell.”

“There is,” he says, as if remembering a part of himself long forgotten.

“I know.” Doris’ eye goes dark. “We’re standing in it.”

Somewhere a radio sounds off and he hears the name “Cornelius Robinson”.


	13. Chapter 13

“Michael, I’m pregnant,” Doris tells him.

_Whore._

“Oh?” He barely looks up.

_Apathetic._

She’s told him this before. Sometimes the kids have made it, but she’s fragile and they never last long. Girls mostly, with that one eye of hers and the same sparse black hair.

_Ugly._

“This one is probably yours.”

_Careless._

“What makes you say that?”

_Moron._

“Oh, I just have a feeling.” She smiles hollowly. “And you’re the only man I’ve… been with, that they let shove his cock in me without a sleeve.” Her eye trails down to the sore little bumps around her crotch. He has the same on his own. “It… has to be you.”

“Splendid,” he groans. “We’re going to make _wonderful_ parents.”

_Liar._

Doris’ grin turns sharp at the edges. “Aren’t we just?”


	14. Chapter 14

Michael Yagoobian Junior looks like him - or will someday.

“It’s a boy.”

Then they take him.

He wonders if Cornelius will have any children of his own.


	15. Chapter 15

Years go by, though how many he cannot say for sure; there are more rooms and bodies and blood. And then there is Doris. Some nights he lies awake and listens to her cry, on others she is the one who reaches out for him in the dark when his eyes are the ones to stream with tears.

There are more, and there are less, and slowly they grow older.

He becomes a man; she a woman, and they grow up in this place of shadows and horror. Their son is old enough to walk and talk now. They see him dragged off to the rooms where they take pictures. He doesn’t know that he’s their son.

The rooms become less, as do the clients.

The radio buzzes over and over again with the name of “Cornelius Robinson”.

_Bastard._


	16. Chapter 16

“Michael, when you get out of here, I want you to make them _pay_ for what they did to us, do you understand?”

Doris glares up at him, her only eye filled with angry tears. Her hair is beginning to fall out, and her face has started to turn with age.

_Old._

“Why just me? I thought we were in this together.”

Michael is thin as a rail, pale and riddled with more diseases than he can name. 

_Sickly._

“I don’t think I’ll be around much longer…” She trails off. “No one wants me anymore.”

“I want you.”

She scoffs. “Moron. You know what I mean.”

He does. However much he wishes he didn’t, he does.

“… I won’t let them hurt you,” he tells her, though his voice is too weak to sound anything close to convincing.

“You’d better let them.” She leans forward. “We both know you don’t have a chance in hell against them. _You_ still get a few customers, they still have a reason to keep you around. You’ve gotta get Mike and get out and just… you have to live to make sure these bastards _rot_ for what they did!”

_Twisted._

He nods his head. “I guess you’re right.”

“Damn straight I am! Now I want you to promise me you’ll get through this, and when you do you’ll get our baby and you’ll get them for me. Promise me that you’ll get them for all of us!”

“… Yes, alright. I promise.”

“Good.”

Days later, Michael is alone again. Doris has gone-

_-just as Cornelius did before her._


	17. Chapter 17

“Doris… I’m so sorry…”

Michael Yagoobian has crow’s feet where there were once black circles beneath his eyes, and his hairline has long since begun to recede. He has not aged well. Soon he will die, in a no prettier manner.

His visitors have stopped coming entirely.

“I can’t keep my promise. I’m so sorry.”

He waits for what he knows is coming.


	18. Chapter 18

“Michael, is it?”

The man in front of him is even larger than the one that brought him to this place to begin with. He is leering and dark-haired with sharp teeth and a twisted smile. Michael has seen him somewhere before - on the cover of a book, on a blurb in the paper - though he is hard-pressed to remember where.

“Michael Yagoobian,” he says, looking up from under greasy strands of hair.

_Suspicious._

The man flashes a smile that is far too wide to be genuine.

“I’d like to make you an offer,” he says, “and I suggest you take it.”

“What kind of offer?”

_Desperate._

“You’ll live,” he is told, “this is the _only_ way you’ll live.” The man puts a hand beneath his chin and tips his face up, forcing contact with his eyes. “And, because I’m feeling generous, I’ll even let you have that boy of yours. I’ll pay for him myself.”

“What do you want me to do?”

_Spineless._

That smile is back again. 

“Oh, my dear Michael,” the man sighs, “that’s the best part.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Doris?”

He sees her picture on the wall of a drugstore, just outside the city’s limits. She is younger, happier and with both eyes - one glass, he knows, but one couldn't tell. The paper it has been printed on is old and yellowed, and the ink has faded over the years, but Michael would know her face anywhere.

The picture cannot answer him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I couldn’t get out on my own, I’m not strong like you were.”

She is only a child in this photograph, twelve or thirteen years of age. Younger than him, younger than either of them were when they first met. 

“I’m working with the ones who hurt us, hurt you, please don’t hate me for it. I didn’t have any choice.”

Doris smiles in the picture, a beautiful smile. He never knew she could look like that, of course he didn’t… she never smiled in front of him.

“I’m so sorry…”

_Weak._

The girl in the picture wears a black bowler hat. In the weeks that follow he will acquire one of his own.

“Cornelius Robinson,” announces the station’s television, “wins second Nobel Prize.”


	20. Chapter 20

It is on impulse that he decides to steal the car. He has no plan, no rhyme or reason to his actions, but the garage door is open and no one is home, and Cornelius’ prized possession is his for the taking…

… but nothing much changes.

He and his new _employer_ watch the Robinson house for weeks, and yet the incident blows over. His former friend is not happy with what he has stolen, but he’ll get over it eventually.

Michael Yagoobian will never get back what has been taken away from him.

The man with the uncanny smile offers to let him take that piece away from someone else.

“Who?” He asks.

“Why, Robinson, of course,” the man says with a voice like silk washed in oil. “Who else?”

Michael Yagoobian nods his head.

_Vengeful._


	21. Chapter 21

Cornelius Robinson is not there when they enter the house.

Someone else is.

With a lower IQ, poorer grades and even worse impulse control, Wilbur Robinson isn’t much like his father. With black hair and brown eyes, he only barely resembles him. Hurting him is pointless-

_-but Michael Yagoobian does it anyway._

_Monster._

He holds down Wilbur Robinson and hurts this boy in the way that so many others hurt him, not so long ago. He moves aside and watches as his employer does the same. All the while he tries not to think about what this makes him now - no longer a victim - he wonders what Doris would say-

-but Doris can’t say anything anymore.

The boy sobbing into the floor is only thirteen. He is only a child-

-but then, so was he; so was Doris. So is the boy he left at a murderer’s home.

So was Cornelius, but he tries not to think about that part.

Wilbur Robinson bleeds and cries and screams for parents that cannot hear him. He begs, and wails-

-and still Michael Yagoobian watches and waits, and holds a gun to his head.

When the smiling man finishes, and adjusts his clothing, Michael makes his getaway. He doesn’t want to look at the boy - at this boy who is nothing like Cornelius, and so much like himself, so much like his own son, that it hurts - the blood on the floor is damning, and he does not wish to see any more of this thing he has done than he needs to.

_Monster._

They leave. His employer is all smiles, all false decorum and laughter. It is as if they have come back from a night out on the town, rather than-

_-rather than what?_

_Monster._

He lies awake at night, his head echoing with a thousand voices screaming and weeping and crying out.

He hears Doris’ voice, and his own - both old and young - he hears that of his employer and of his former friend-

-and he hears Wilbur Robinson loudest of all.

_Monster._

_Monster._

_Monster._

_Monster._


	22. Chapter 22

“I need him dead.”

Need, not want. He says _need_.

For better or for worse, Michael Yagoobian has gotten used to Padraic Ratigan, his… almost employer.

“Who?”

He knows better than to ask why.

Ratigan turns on him suddenly, with a wild grin and glowing black eyes.

“Michael,” he purrs in a voice like oiled velvet. “Michael… you’ll have to do a favor for me.”

“I won’t kill anyone.”

He can draw this line. He has to have some sort of line to draw.

Ratigan’s smile drops just a little. His nostrils flare.

And then his grin curves, revealing a mouthful of teeth and all of them white and sharp and jagged.

“Alright then,” he says. “Have it your way.”

“... R-really…? You… you won’t make me-

“Oh, of _course_ not!” That voice… that mouth… those terrible hungry eyes… “With any luck you won’t need to.”

“But you said-”

“My dear Michael,” Ratigan’s tone is patronizing, in that way that condescending adults talk to children. In that way that women are addressed by the likes of a sexist man. “There’s more than one way to kill a man, you know…”

“What are you…?”

“I _will_ still be needing that favor.”

“… Of course.”

It’s not like he has a choice.

~

“… Sanchez… a musician… becoming a problem… I’ll take care of the others… push him over the edge… shouldn’t take much… what’s the big deal… you’ve done this before…”

~

Finding this musician is easier than he’d like it to be… for obvious reasons.

The Sanchez family is neither rich nor poor and their home is neither small nor large, in a reasonably safe neighborhood. Comfortably middle class.

In his chest, Yagoobian feels a pang of jealousy. He tries (unsuccessfully) to push it down. Tries hard. He knows better than to get angry.

Not here. Not now. Not at him.

The family that lived here used to be bigger. He can remember that much from that life of his long, long ago.

Sanchez’s mother is dead, having spent a decade or more rotting in the California ground. The rest of his assorted family has gone with her. Before and after and in so great a number that only three (including Sanchez himself) remain.

His mother is dead. What’s to be jealous of there?

_He still has a father, doesn’t he?_

And a grandmother, from what Michael’s heard.

Neither are home now. Ratigan has planned it out this way.

“Just to ensure that no one interferes…”

No one will. No one ever has.

Not in Michael’s favor (would this be? would it?).

Not in that boy’s.

_They did for Robinso-_

No. Don’t get angry. Don’t be angry. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

No one will intervene on Sanchez’s behalf.

He almost wants them to…

~

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He goes  
…knock…  
… knock…  
…. knocking  
at the musician’s door.

And there  
is  
the right foot  
falling on hardwood  
is  
the left foot  
crossing carpet.

And there  
are…  
footsteps.

“Can I… help you…?”

Someone (Sanchez is someone… the musician) opens up the door.

~

The man (who is a musician) that stands by the door has black hair and brown skin and glassy eyes. His smile is friendly enough, but veined by insincerity. He hasn’t been sleeping right. His hands twitch at his sides. Twitch violently.

As if whirligigs are what chase on through his blood-stream.

~

Those hands. His hands.

Hands.

Nails and joints and skin and fingers and…

… hands.

His hands.

He knows those hands.

~

Knows he knows them.

~

Sanchez is looking at him.

For a moment, Michael isn’t sure what he’s meant (what he means) to say…

Despite the fact that he’s spent most of the (prior) night and (present) day rehearsing just that.

What comes out is:

“Erm… I… I need you to…”

“… I’m sorry…?”

“Can I come inside…?”

No. No. Nonononononononononono. No.

He has some idea what Ratigan did to Sanchez. Has some idea of why he wants him gone. Wants him quiet.

Frown. Step. A doorknob gripped tighter. Door slides shut part-way.

“Uh…” He recovers. Twitchy hands. Fake smile. “Sorry. Don’t think I heard you r-”

Right. Left.

Michael looks both ways and leans in close.

“It’s Ratigan,” his whispers straight into this music man’s ear. “Ratigan sent me here.”

_W  
R  
O  
N  
 **G  
answer.**_

_Wrong. Wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrong._

Sanchez pales. Pales and shudder. Pales and _gasps_

_-and starts away._

~

Michael reaches for the door.

~

“Wait,” he says. “You don’t underst-”

Only… Sanchez doesn’t listen.

“What is there to understand?!”

“I just need to talk to you.”

And he does (really! that’s all there is!).

“Right,” Sanchez scoffs and attempts to shut the door in his face.

Michael sticks out his foot and grips the outside handle. Twists it so that it will not lock.

“Look… he’s worried that you’re… that you’ll tell people about-”

“About what he did to me?!”

Michael swallows. “… Yeah.”

“I… Tell him I… I won’t. Okay?! Tell him I won’t.”

“You think he’ll believe that?”

Surely he isn’t stupid…

Ratigan wouldn’t have been so interested if he was…

“I… I haven’t gone to the cops by now, have I?!”

No. But he will.

Michael’s heard about that little group of his. About Ratigan’s others. He understands what has made his ‘employer’ so afraid.

“Look, will you just listen?”

“Why should I?!”

“I’m trying to help you here! Ratigan sent me to-”

“To what?!”

~

“… I’m supposed to keep you quiet.”

Sanchez slams his shoulder against the door, but Michael holds it firm. Handle twisted. Arm bent.

“You already-”

“He wants me to… to permanently shut you up… if you know what I mean…”

It’s not the most eloquent way to phrase something like this.

But it gets the point across.

“You’re here to… to…”

“I’m not a murderer.”

Though God knows he’s tried his hand at everything else.

“Could’ve fooled me!”

Sanchez slams himself on the door

again  
again  
again.

This is difficult. He isn’t listening.

_Don’t get angry. Don’t get angry. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t._

“Please! I mean it! He didn’t send me here to… to kill you!”

“Then what did he-”

“Something that will make you kill yourself.”

Sanchez goes ghostly pale as the last of the blood drains from his face.

“… What…?”

“Hey,” Michael says and tries to calm him down. “It… it’s alright… I’m not actually going to do it.”

But…

The musician’s gaze darkens and his nostrils flare

and he says:

“I don’t believe you.”

and he slams himself against the door.

-

In a world that Michael would like to live in, it happens like this:

“Wait,” he says. “Wait.”

And he holds the handle. And pushes back on the door.

Sanchez is afraid (like he was). Afraid.

But Michael Yagoobian doesn’t step across the threshold. He doesn’t come inside.

“Listen,” he says. “Listen. I don’t want to hurt you… and I won’t, okay? I won’t… I just need to talk…”

“About…?”

“Just… I’m not going to… you know, I swear I’m not… but he…”

“… isn’t giving you much of a choice.”

“No. He isn’t. So…”

“… So… what…?”

“Just… lay low for a while. You’ve seen TV… you’ve already been…”

Well…

“I’m not… I won’t do it,” he says, “but he wants me to…”

“A-and?”

“… I need him to think I have…”

If this were the world he wants to live in, Sanchez would nod and would know just what he means to say without him having to say it at all.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

~

But this is not such a perfect world.

~

What happens instead is:

CRAcK.

Hands. His hands. One shoots forward, grabs for space, just as the musician slams the door.

A finger snaps between the wood. Bone breaks. Blood spurts out.

And the man in the bowler hat sees

**_RED._ **

~

Temper, temper.

Satan’s sin.

Wrath.

Temper, temper.

~

The door forces open.

How does he open it?  
With the strength he did not know he had (has?).

Strength. That’s a laugh.

The musician screams.

~

Tempertempertempertempertempertemper

He is a mad bull.

Seeing nothing but red.

When he comes back to himself he finds it there. That color. Thick and gel-ish on the floor.

Staining the carpet.

Pooling onto hardwood.

His hands are bloodied.

But are they bleeding…?

He cannot say.

There is white there too. In streaks. In puddles.

Not as much as there is red.

-

The musician is sobbing and trying not to.

Try  
try  
trying

hard not to let the man in the bowler hat see.

-

The floor is red.

His hands are red.

His shirt and shoes and fingernails…

He looks bad.

The musician… the musician looks so much worse.

-

“I...I didn’t…”

He leaves without finishing.

What the hell is he meant to say.

-

Second. This is his second.

Maybe he really is just this sort of person…

Was he always going to be…? Always…?

Maybe.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Second. His second time.

What does that make him? What does that make him if a serial is three?

~

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**  
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~

Ratigan smiles when he returns.

“Ah,” he says. “Ah. Michael, I’m surprised at you.”

But he isn’t really.

That grin is proof enough of that.


End file.
